Tuesday, March 30, 2010

An oddment, followed by an alliterative endment

She always closes the window before dining. Don't want a repeat of the pigeons playfully puttering in the prime minister's pudding.

This opening might morph into a story at some point, but for now it just struck me funny. I was looking for a fancy word for love and Google took me to a site that showed the linguistic similiarities in the romantic languages of the world. If you go to this site in Wikipedia you will be able to memorize the phrase "She always closes the window before dining" in twenty-nine different romantic languages.

The French translation was my favorite:

Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant de dîner/souper.

Mostly because of the word souper.

Ah, the French……always thinking of amour……. and dining, and apparently the closing of windows.

The French are such a strange people……..

22 comments:

Rachel S said...

Sie immer die Fenster vor Abendessen schliesst.

Oh wait, German isn't a romance language???

Lauren C said...

Huh! Thanks to that handy Wiki article, I learned that Walloon is a romance language. Wouldn't have guessed - it's a language spoken in Belgium, so I figured it would be more like Dutch. Not so. Hm. I wonder why my boss said that nobody speaks it much anymore, if it's so similar to French?... lazy Belgians.

[ I like to have the windows open when I dine, if the weather's fine :) ]

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... interesting. I wouldn't have thought that Romanian was a romance language...
"Ea închide totdeauna fereastra înainte de cină."

I wonder... Why isn't Hungarian a romance language too? :(
"Ő mindig becsukja az ablakot vacsora előtt."
Oh, I know: probably cause Hungarian is supposed to be harder than Chinese :)

PS: there is an award for you on my blog today (hope you'll play with me) :)

Alan W. Davidson said...

Hey. Qu'est-ce qui se passe ici?

There just isn't enough French (as in Quebecois) around here!

Karen from Mentor said...

I translated the phrase you left for me Alan just to make sure that you hadn't slipped in something dirty......

[did you forget to have breakfast or something?]

Karen from Mentor said...

"Hungarian is harder than Chinese" it just seems like that would work REALLY well as a slogan....

*gets out pencil and starts doodling*

Karen from Mentor said...

I LOVED the word Walloon when I saw it on the list Lauren.

It's like balloon only with a weeeeeeeeeee at the front....

And what's more fun than a happy balloon?

[maybe a monkey with a gun....but that's a different story altogether]

Karen from Mentor said...

Rachel said:
Sie immer die Fenster vor Abendessen schliesst.
Oh wait, German isn't a romance language???

Karen reacted by:

Whooping with laughter and imagining german poetry.....then whooping some more.....

[btw? this will be a lot funnier when you remember that our name is Schindler.]

Carrie Clevenger said...

Heehee, cute!

Marisa Birns said...

She always closes da window 'bfoe dining ya'll is mad stupid.

Well, it's romantic in the hood, yo!

Laura Eno said...

While I must admit that Walloon is quite happy sounding (or perhaps a bit like a loon), I really want to hear about the monkey with a gun. Or even better, a monkey with a sword. Now THAT would be cool...

Karen from Mentor said...

Or a monkey with a FLAMING sword.....oh man...would THAT be cool....

Go to your inbox in three minutes...I'm sending you the Eddie Izzard bit about the monkey with a gun.

Karen from Mentor said...

Romantic in the hood....somehow sounds dirty Marisa...but I think it was just Sam and all his talk of mucky strumpets and dirty stop outs this morning...my brain is warped.

clarification: warped more

Karen from Mentor said...

Aw thanks Carrie, you look quite fetching yourself today.

KjM said...

Hungarian, like Finnish, isn't even an Indo-European language, let alone Romance. It's part of the Uralic group of languages.

I, too, remember being surprised when I encountered very many latin-based words in Romanian (and then I looked at the "Roman" that make up the first part of the word!) :-}

OK, now I'd better get back to work - or risk defenestration (now that the window is open)

Karen from Mentor said...

*happy dance* Thank you Kevin, I'm going to use the word defenestration in every sentence I say today.

Actually I'll be using both defenestration AND sheybogan....because sheybogan is just so much fun to say.

Wednesday is "overuse your favorite word day" right?

Alan W. Davidson said...

Now, Karen. Would I do that to you? What kind of guy do you take me for?[he says, with as much innocence as he can dredge up]

judy said...

Ha! I love romantic in the hood. And the french maybe strange but they sure do talk pretty. ;-)

Karen from Mentor said...

I know you typed "pretty" Judy, but I, of course, heard it in my head as purty.

:0)

Karen from Mentor said...

Want a shotglass to hold all of that innocence in Alan? Or maybe a thimble?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Lauren C said...

oh languages. I do wish I were better at them. and speaking of un-Romance languages: I only know one word in Hungarian. it's their word for plum brandy. should come in handy, no?
and I know about three or four words in Finnish: the words for thank you, parking spot, and art museum... and maybe the word for towel. (feel a story brewing here? I think I do!)

Karen from Mentor said...

Well with that amazing command of languages AND your towel, as long as you remember not to panic you'll be fine.